Angst, for the Sole Purpose of Itself
by Rukita
Summary: The lives of the Yu-Gi-Oh protagonists are plagued by angst and pain. At first, they believe to be alone in their suffering, but learn that malaise is universal. Philosophical at times, a deep read.
1. Humans Exaggerate

Angst, for the sole purpose of itself  
  
~ ~ Chapter One: Humans Exaggerate ~ ~ Chapter Two: So What? Chapter Three: There's No Harm in That Chapter Four: Is There?  
  
Rukita (me): Well, here I am again with yet another story. I realized I had to start this when I sat down to write my other Yu-Gi-Oh fan fic, "Kaiba-Chan No Party" and I found that Evanescence music doesn't work well with humor. Plus, humor is a daytime thing; angst a creature of the night, so when the sun sets, I cannot write one, beforehand I cannot write the other. Quite limiting, isn't it? Yet mood creates the story (as so eloquently stated by Nathaniel Hawthorne in "The Custom House"), at least a good one.  
  
Ryou: So who's this story about?  
  
Rukita: Mainly the three yami pairs (Bakura, Malik, and Yuugi), with probably less Malik until I understand his character more. I still haven't finished the Battle City series of Yu-Gi-Oh yet, so my knowledge of Malik comes mostly from other fics I have read (a not too consistent or reliable source), but once I finish the DVDs, I'll put more of him in. I'll also have some Kaiba in there too; I'm trying to use the characters with the most development (Anzu and Honda are kinda flat characters, Mokuba's too young to have problems, and I really don't think I could do much with Jounouchi or Mai, but they might get stuck in a little too).  
  
Yami Yuugi: What's up with the title; it has the aura of foreshadowing to me.  
  
Rukita: Well, yes. The whole point of this story is to explain an alternate viewpoint of why angst "plagues" our lives, basically stating that we experience angst and pain to fulfill an emptiness that we feel when "completely" happy. Kind of like in "The Matrix" where humans couldn't live in the perfect world that the machines had set up for them; they required an imperfect world where bad and pain do happen.  
  
Also, sometimes, accuracy might need to be sacrificed to better the flow of the story (which is set up in a stream-of-consciousness style), so if there's a loose end somewhere, just ignore it. If you want a story that focuses more on plot, go read my other story.  
  
Mokuba: Actually, her other one isn't too bad, so check it out anyway! ~_^ And also, reviews are what keep her motivation going; no reviews, no motivation, few updates. So please review (even a short little confirmation that, yes, people actually read the story).  
  
Rukita: Quick little disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh (hopefully you realized this already), this fic will contain shounen-ai (any surprise there?) although not at first, and this is not a happy fic. At all. Also, I will provide translations for any Japanese I use in the story at the end of each chapter, but much of it's pretty basic stuff that anyone who's seen subtitled anime should know. Since there's little dialogue in the first chapters anyway, there shouldn't be too much Japanese, so don't worry about it.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Bakura Ryou  
  
Ryou sat on the train gazing out the window as he did every day. He always seemed to be the last passenger on the train, but he didn't mind; the solitude allowed him to think. The winter months sometimes got cold, dark, and lonely as he walked home from the train station, but lonely was better. When he was alone, the demon sleeping inside him would not awaken. Ryou had heard people refer to a demon inside of themselves, such as an addiction, obsession, or anxiety. He hated when they said that; they had at least some control over this other presence, whereas he had none. When the demon wanted out, he broke forth, leaving Ryou completely powerless even over his own body.  
  
What little refuge Ryou sought in friends revealed itself to be a mere illusion, temporary at best. In his seeking friends that might understand his position, he had merely assisted the demon in his search. But maybe if the demon ever completed his goal, he would leave. Go back to sleep content and not disturb him again.  
  
"Don't be stupid," two voices scolded him. One cried this statement out sadly, desperately wanting to believe what it had just denounced, pleading for Ryou to cling to what little hope remained. The other asserted the validity of this remark with a cruel, authoritarian arrogance meant to belittle any control that Ryou felt he held. This voice held within it a strength and volume that overpowered the boy's will, while the other voice merely echoed throughout his mind like a fading memory or a dream suppressed by reality.  
  
"Reality, what is that?" Ryou asked himself. He had many realities, in none of which did he ever feel "real" himself. There were times like this, when his other self lay dormant inside his soul room; perhaps that was his reality. After all, this was the real world, filled with tangible objects and sensible occurrences. Yet weren't his dreams, at least at the time, just as concrete and logical? He could sense the world around him in his dreams, the sights, smells, sounds, all like those he perceived in the "real" world. Dreams served as reality number two. Three, it would seem, is his soul room: the non-existent place to which he disappeared whenever his spirit stripped him of his consciousness. This place had an abstract quality to it, much like the haziness of a dream, but afterwards it seemed more real.  
  
"Why don't dreams feel real? But they aren't real, I've known that forever. Well, not forever; I'm sure as a child I couldn't understand what they actually were. But then my father would tell me their true identity: figments of the imagination compiled together composed of thoughts and events experienced during the day that served to organize my mind. If they are just 'figments of the imagination,' how can they be my reality? But what if I hadn't been revealed the truth? What if I had continued to believe that dreams were like a second life that I lived on top of this one? Less logical and more random in its basic rules and limitations, perhaps, but all the same, another of my realities." He leaned back against the plastic of the train seat, absorbed in his thoughts; the thought of a possible escape. "If dreams are one of my realities, why must I exist in this one? Can I not disappear into this alternate reality, and never have to emerge in this one again?" He closed his eyes and cleared his mind of all thoughts, allowing himself to pass into his world of dreams. "Yume . . . release me, save me, envelop me, don't let me go," he whispered, before his mind dove into the realm of the unconscious, leaving his body slumped on the train seat.  
  
"Oi," his yami grumbled, stumbling out of his soul room, holding his head in his right hand; he wasn't too pleased at being woken,. "I've told you a million times how much I hate it when you fall asleep early; I don't enjoy being forced to take over when you decide to drift off." His hikari didn't reply. Yami Bakura stormed into his hikari's soul room to find him asleep, curled in a protective ball, on the bed, which was promptly kicked roughly. "Wake up!" he yelled, but the boy still lay asleep. Feeling ignored, Yami Bakura leaned forward and hissed in the smaller boy's ear. "I'm getting angry and impatient, and you know the extent of my patience. I'll ask you again, once more, to get your ass up and the get hell back to the real world."  
  
"There is no real world," Ryou whispered in his sleep. Enraged, Yami Bakura grabbed Ryou's shoulders, his uncut nails digging into the skin, and pinned him down on the bed.  
  
"How dare you," he hissed, his face nearly touching that of his hikari's, his eyes glaring a violent red, "don't think you can just ignore me like that, nor that you can hide by feigning sleep. Now get up." Upon seeing no response, no reaction at all, from the boy, he pulled back and delivered a blow to the soft, pale face under him. Nothing. Not a whimper, a cry, a flutter of his eyelids, a jerk, a wince, nothing. As if the body underneath him was nothing more than just that, a body, lacking a mind, a soul. Startled by this sudden feeling of emptiness, Yami Bakura stood quickly, glancing around the room as if Ryou were hiding somewhere among the cracks on the walls and ceiling. Ryou's soul room was surprisingly decrepit, despite its owner's youth. Yami observed the room's gloomy feel, emphasized by its crumbling architecture and sagging structure, finally realizing its forsaken appearance, much like its owner's expression. "He's really gone," Yami Bakura whispered, at first softly in shock, but then again, the anger returning to his cold face. "So, he left, did he? He can't hide forever; he'll have to wake eventually." He walked back to the bed, placing a hand on his hikari's cheek, rubbing the forming bruise with his thumb. "You'll have to wake eventually," he whispered, "and when you do, I'll still be here. You can't escape me, escape reality. For I am you, and reality will follow you like a dark shadow, wherever you go. In the meanwhile, I have no resistance do I? I may do as I please, without you to impede me." He stood again, a determined, pleased look flashed across his face. "Thanks for the free vessel, yadonushi."  
  
Bakura sat up as the train slowed to a stop. He stood, glancing out the corners of his eyes, and then coolly walked down the train's stairs, out into the equally cool air.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  
  
Yume: dream Yadonushi: host  
  
Rukita: I figure I'll try to cover a different person each chapter, only loosely intertwining their various stories at first, then eventually they will meld together as they realize that they are not the only ones to suffer from pain.  
  
Yuugi: don't forget to please review!  
  
Next Chapter: Kaiba Seto 


	2. So What?

Angst, for the sole purpose of itself  
  
Chapter One: Humans Exaggerate ~ ~ Chapter Two: So What? ~ ~ Chapter Three: There's No Harm in That Chapter Four: Is There?  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  
  
Rukita: When I refer to "Kaiba," it's to Seto, not Mokuba. I'm not incredibly fond of the name "Seto," it just seems too dull for the character. "Kaiba," on the other hand, has a certain flair if you ignore the fact that it means "seahorse" (there's a reason he's called that in the Hong Kong DVDs, the subtitlers didn't just pull that out of thin air, although Mai's various names seem less warranted). Actually, I think it's rather cute, almost like suggesting another personality that Kaiba doesn't reveal often.  
  
Malik: The authoress apologizes for being so slow on updates; she always makes sure to post entries that are over 1500 words long (to ensure quality; her shorter chapters typically contain less meaningful content).  
  
Isis: There's barely any shounen-ai in this chapter, but some does exist. If you don't like it, you probably should find another story or change your fan fiction preferences. Or you could create a state of denial and just ignore it (good luck on that one).  
  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  
  
Kaiba Seto  
  
"Nii-sama," Mokuba peeked around a mostly closed door into his brother's office. As usual, no, always, he sat at his desk, typing. He was always typing, or analyzing figures, or sometimes developing or testing his duel disk systems. Although Mokuba did not expect to be greeted warmly by his older brother, he was surprised when Kaiba cast him a cold glare, showing atypical annoyance.  
  
"Do you need something?"  
  
Mokuba glanced down, intimidated by his brother's tone. He struggled to speak clearly, and his brother's impatient tapping did not assist him much. "I, I was just hoping, that maybe, if you had the time, it's nothing really, you don't have to help me."  
  
"Help you with what?" Kaiba's emotion failed to flicker while Mokuba stumbled over his words. He normally had no trouble speaking his mind, but recently he found difficulty in addressing his brother, as if they had somehow become estranged.  
  
"Math homework," he squeaked, holding out his workbook. Kaiba took it, quickly glanced over the problems, sighed, and turned to face his brother. He quickly explained the process to him, scratching a few notes in the book with a pencil, and then turned back to his laptop. Mokuba had hoped to sneak some time in with his brother afterwards, but seeing his obvious discontent, and even possible agitation, gave up on the idea and slunk out of the room, making sure to close the door behind him so as not to disturb his brother's work. "He's probably got a deadline to meet, or a large contract that he has to prepare for," Mokuba assured himself, convinced that his brother had a justifiable reason for acting particularly withdrawn. "It's work, after all; it's really important to him and difficult to maintain."  
  
His brother, however, was not distressed over Kaiba Corporation. In fact, Kaiba Corp. was doing quite well, and work coincidentally was slow since the newest duel disk system had just been released. Instead, Kaiba's anxieties rested in something much more personal, more trivial.  
  
"Yes, it's trivial," he told himself, "so why am I so concerned with it?" He leaned back in his chair, tilted his head back, and closed his eyes. "What have I become? I have shriveled into little more than another easily distracted ant in this already overpopulated country, overpopulated planet. I have achieved in less than five years what most people spend their entire lives trying to accomplish and barely even make a dent in comparison to what I have created. Yet this motivation, this drive, this desperate want for attainment that propelled me forward, to where has it dissipated? But it hasn't vanished, rather it has been replaced; that which used to constantly fill my mind has parted, making way for newer thoughts and obsessions; it has moved down the ladder, up in the hierarchy of needs that influences my attentions. What a pathetic creature its departure has left me to be!  
  
"And what, indeed, has replaced this motivation for accomplishment that has brought me so far and made me different from the other worthless ants? What trivial concerns disturb me? Oh, it's despicably simple, they are after all but primitive ponderings, they are-" he paused, opening his eyes slightly, and found himself staring blankly at the ceiling. He had answers, witty, intelligent, insightful answers, stored in the depths of his mind to questions both tangible and abstract. And yet, as he frantically poured over this storage of answers, he realized that he had no answer for the question he had just posed to himself. Such a simple question! He was disgusted to even have to discuss the issue with himself, the concept of having some other thoughts intrude upon his focused, work- oriented, well organized mind. "What _do_ I ponder? What thoughts plague my consciousness? There's something wrong, something that I have to discover about myself and correct so I can continue on as I once did. There's something, but I can't decide what. Like a void, an abyss, a great, gaping mouth draining away my soul particles at a time, but it's a constant draining. Like a dream, I sometimes stumble upon fragments of the identity of my parasite, but like a dream, these fragments slip from my grasp as quickly as they appeared. But I know it's something primitive that irks me, something underlying, something so blatantly fundamental to the human psyche that I have removed it from my consciousness due to irrelevance. Like a childish need for religion, for purpose; something to which ancient and weak-minded individuals need to cling, not me, for I have risen above that level. Except it's not quite that; I have a purpose, a place that I have created for myself. Rather . . ." He suddenly jolted upright from his chair, eyes wide; he had just grasped a fragment but this time he didn't let go. "No, it, it couldn't possibly," he stuttered, then laughed anxiously. "Look what I have become. I don't need this philosophical crap. This isn't me."  
  
He stood and turned, facing the tall bay window that stood in place of his office's western wall. Night had cast her veil over the city, a dark, silky sheet covered in holes out of which the city lights shone forth. The moon cast a dim blue light upon the city, her brilliance dulled by the light pollution that stained the sky. Shrouded in wispy clouds, she appeared to sadly gaze upon the earth, as if realizing that she had been crushed by humanity. Her mystic qualities stripped, her virgin soil violated. She had be subjugated by humanity, so she lay, dangled more of, in the bleached sky to accept her inferiority and humility.  
  
"Besides," Kaiba whispered, as if he could barely bring himself to sound out the words, "It can't possibly, I can't possibly be so weak as to succumb to, to," he reached his hand out, barely touching the cool glass with his trembling fingers, "to love." He smirked slightly at this remark, disgusted at what he had just spoken. "It's probably not though," he rationalized, "probably just some stray hormones or perhaps abnormal levels of electrical activity in the hypothalamus. Some physical anomaly, a temporary glitch to be ignored. It's just another natural human instinct to be repressed." This reassured him, and he returned to his desk where he turned off his laptop and left the room.  
  
He didn't get very far down the hall before he was struck by sudden thought. It slid like a serpent through his mind, winding itself around every crevice, glaring mockingly at the boy. Kaiba felt his chest tighten and his heart begin to pound. "But," the serpent hissed slowly, "it's _not_ a natural instinct, is it? It would be one thing if you had fallen for a _girl_, but you didn't, did you?"  
  
"Urusai," Kaiba whispered weakly, for the serpent spoke the truth. It _would_ be one thing if his love had been for a female, then he could brush the feeling away like a mosquito. But he hadn't, and this changed him, this affected him, who he was. He couldn't just brush this feeling away, dismiss it as a nuisance, a bothersome part of being human.  
  
"Doushite?" he asked himself. "Why me? Why a male? Why . . . _him_?"  
  
He stumbled down the hallway to his bedroom, which also faced the western sky. The door was open to the balcony, allowing the breeze to blow into the room. Beyond the door was the moon, barely glowing now. As Kaiba stared into the night, the moon was consumed by dark clouds and vanished. The sky was no darker from her absence, for humanity's light kept it lit. The moon was no longer necessary.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  
  
Nii-sama: older brother  
  
Urusai: literally translated it means noisy, but it's used to mean "shut up"  
  
Doushite: why  
  
Hypothalamus: not a Japanese word, but rather a medical term referring to part of the brain which controls the autonomic nervous system, hunger, and the pituitary gland (meaning that it also influences sexual drive)  
  
Rukita: I kept the ending rather open so that I can tweak it as I deem necessary later on, but I'll reveal more about Kaiba's little secret soon. I'd like to play with his character a bit before any of the other characters find out though. After all, that's what destroys them, the secrets they keep, and yet that's what reassures them that they're alive (kind of like in the Goo Goo Dolls song "Iris," which says "you bleed to know you're alive).  
  
Ryou: And don't forget, the more reviews, the faster chapters get written!  
  
Next Chapter: Yuugi 


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